mining

Right now, there is a national movement growing against coal and coal seam gas mining across Australia. Farmers and environmental groups are blockading Coal Seam Gas (CSG) operations at Tara on the western Darling Downs in Queensland, locking their gates to the CSG activities that are hazardous to human health, agricultural land and underground water.

Media Release

11th August, 2009

Climate change protesters disrupted a speech by Rio Tinto Coal Managing Director Bill Champion in Newcastle today.

Half a dozen protesters from Rising Tide Newcastle were removed from the premises by police after arriving at the speech with banners and a megaphone.

Winners announced this morning - see below.

The Environment and Community Scam Awards, attended by members of coal affected communities from around NSW, will be held outside the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Terrigal this morning, to recognise and denounce the irreversible impacts of coal mining on communities and the environment.

The awards ceremony is a protest against the NSW Minerals Council’s Environment and Community Conference, which will be held inside the hotel, for $1000 per ticket.

The Iemma Government's decision to approve the massive Anvil Hill coal mine shows that they have no intention of fighting climate change, and are incapable of saying 'no' to the coal lobby; said the Newcastle activist who took the mine proposal to court and won, Peter Gray.

“The Iemma Government has conducted 10 months of consultation with the community about the Anvil Hill coal mine proposal, and then ignored it all. They have received thousands of public submissions demanding that the Anvil Hill mine be rejected due to the major amounts of greenhouse pollution it would create – the equivalent of the entire NSW transport sector. They were told by the horse breeding and wine making industries that the coal mine should not go ahead, because it would threaten other industries in the Hunter. They have ignored all these concerns, because they are too gutless to say 'no' to the coal lobby.”